1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a chip mount, a method for making the chip mount and a method for mounting the chip on the chip mount.
More particularly, the present invention relates to a chip mount having a designated chip flag area and configured so that at least one chip can be directly bonded to at least one flag area, wire bonded to the leads of at least one leadframe contained in the mount and encapsulated on the mount where the mount is substantially pre-fabricated so that the chip is exposed to only a limited number of post-mounting manufacturing steps.
2. Description of the Related Art
Integrated circuit dies or chips are subject to damage if not protected by some type of casing or packaging. Current integrated circuit chip packaging involves mounting the chip or integrated circuit device on a leadframe substraight material with an adhesive agent and assembling a chip mount around the attached chip.
Plastic packaging is one such method to protect fragile IC chips. A typical IC packaging process includes mounting an IC die on a leadframe flag area using a suitable adhesive. The IC die and the leadframe are wire bonded. The IC die and the wire bonded leadframe are encapsulated with plastic leaving the leads of the lead frame exposed. The molded frame then undergoes cleaning, which removes excess plastic from the outer leads, package body, and outer leadframe. The molded frame is then cured and the exposed leads are plated. Next, the dambars are cut and the outer leads are cut away from the outer portion of the frame and then formed into the desired shape.
Such plastic packaging processes subject the chip to damage at every step of the mounting manufacturing process which requires the scrapping of valuable IC die. Thus there is a need in the are for pre-fabricated mounts and methods of utilizing pre-fabricated mounts to reduce the number of steps that integrated circuit chip must endure during the mounting process.